


Birthday Boy

by 221b_hound



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Birthday Sex, Crystals, Jewelry, Lingerie, M/M, Rimming, Strength Kink, vajazzling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-27
Updated: 2014-01-27
Packaged: 2018-01-10 05:55:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1155937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's John's birthday: his third as Sherlock's flatmate, his first as Sherlock's lover. Finally something to celebrate! But there's a case, and the planned dinner at Angelo's is not going to happen. Sherlock had other plans anyway. Involving itty bitty boy's lingerie in carmine red, masses of silver jewellery, high heels, crystals and a lot of hot sex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Birthday Boy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AtlinMerrick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtlinMerrick/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Бёздей-бой (Birthday Boy)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3172272) by [lyapsik](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyapsik/pseuds/lyapsik)



> I have had a bit of a rotten week (family stuff, a bit rage-making and tear-making) so I was reading Atlinmerrick's work to cheer me up. I came across a reference to John having a kink for Sherlock in jewellery.
> 
> So I decided to write jewellery/vajazzling/birthday porn to cheer myself up. It was written in a hurry and is thematically a bit all over the shop. But there's rimming. 
> 
> You're welcome.
> 
> And sisiryu has [ translated it into Korean!](http://sisiryu.blog.me/220183331834)

John had planned on a nice meal. Nothing really fancy. He really didn’t do the birthday thing much, not since he’d left home over 20 years ago. He’d been busy studying and working and getting shot and nearly dying. Then there’d been a while when every day he still lived was a curse. And then there had been Sherlock, and every day was a blessing instead, no need to mark one day of the year out as special.

This was the first birthday he and Sherlock had been together lovers, though, and he’d just thought, _Angelo’s_. A nice dinner, a candle, a celebration that this birthday there really was something to celebrate. Not much to ask, really.

But a case came up, and cases always took precedence over dinner. John minded a little, but not too much. Sherlock had been keen on this case, for some reason, even though John was almost certain it was the nervous financial backer behind the fashion show. Well, he said _fashion_. It wasn’t really about _clothes_. More about accessories; the absolutely lavish approach to bejewelling this silversmith-come-body-artist had created. Sherlock was scathingly less inclined to believe such an obvious answer. He thought the bizarre nature of the threats pointed to a much more personal and less pecuniary motive.

The clientele for this artist’s bejewelling technique were varied but united by a certain peacock-ness, the desire to rise above the common herd, to literally _shine_. The technique took the concept of vajazzling, laughed at how sweetly unambitious the notion was, and then put on the most razzle dazzle display for people who really liked to _be seen._

The threatening letters – tattooed for the main part on dried pigskin, for goodness’s sake – brought equal parts anxiety and publicity to the glitter-obsessed artisan who was putting on the ‘fashion’ show.

Sherlock decided the best way to uncover the truth (he suspected it really was just a publicity stunt, but not perhaps by the jeweller himself) was to be _part_ of the show.

John waited backstage, looking smart in his dark suit. Better than smart. _Delicious._   Even he thought so, and he wasn’t much given to vanity. He didn’t hold out much hope they’d still make dinner, but he needed to dress up to pass for a fashionista reporter anyway, and Sherlock had been appreciative of the effect. With his eyes. John had no idea how appreciative someone could be without words, and just their eyes, until Sherlock had looked at him like that.

John was about to learn a lesson in mute _appreciation._

John hadn’t seen the full effect of the artisan bedazzling treatment. Not until Sherlock swayed off the stage in his high heels and his… his… besparklement… into the backstage area. He stood there, slack-jawed, while Sherlock stood tall in his fine array and texted Lestrade. Read the reply impatiently. Texted again and waited even less patiently for the next response. This went on for a little while.

John didn’t mind. He didn’t, frankly, notice. His brain was busy shorting out all cognitive function and merely delivering, over and over, the one rather inane and yet absolutely riveting observation.

_Oh. Holy. Fucking. Christ. On. A. Bicycle. I. Want. That. Want. Want. Want. Want. That. Oh. Dear. God. Dear. God. **Want.**_

The _that_ which John wanted with such a burning, single minded intensity?

Sherlock’s long, pale self, standing in five-inch, open-toed silver-and-gold shoes, his long, bare legs shaved and moisturised and as soft to the touch as they looked on the eye. Standing, hip tilted, showing off the fine curve of his hip and bum, showing off the elegant stretch of his leg. The line of his belly, with its little natural curve, the swell of his pecs and the dusky pink of his nipples. The strength of that long back, with its delicious smattering of freckles and moles. The slight hint of make-up dusting Sherlock’s face to emphasise his cheekbones, his eyes, his lips.

His long, wonderful fingers, jabbing at the keys of the phone. Even jabby, they were gorgeous, those fingers. Those hands. Just. Fucking gorgeous.

And all that lovely long length of the barely clad Sherlock Holmes was bedecked, beglittering,  bedazzling with silver and crystals.

The nail polish, dusky and embedded with stardust, it seemed, led the eye to the rings clustered on Sherlock’s fingers. Those rings shone. Not just on one finger, and not just a single ring per finger. Four fingers and a thumb on each hand, laden with silver and jade and zircon and amethyst. Tiny chips of coral, a circle of lapis lazuli. A sliver of jasper, glowing dark in a twist of silver, accented with rose gold.

One ring sprawled elaborately down Sherlock’s finger and curled elegantly over the back of his hand, the tail of a dragon, forever poised in the midst of motion. Like Sherlock looked to John, even when Sherlock was draped over the sofa, absolutely motionless. Stillness captured in a moment before frantic activity. Even boneless with ennui, something about Sherlock seemed to be only temporarily at bay, waiting for the merest signal before firing up again.

John liked the dragon ring. He loved the coral and lapis and jasper. He loved the glinting silver and the amethyst. He loved how they looked against Sherlock’s pale skin, the lines of his strong muscles underneath. Sherlock was slender, yes, but he was strong. So strong.

But there were treats to behold once John could lift his gaze from Sherlock’s elegant, bejewelled fingers too.

The bangles. A dozen on each slender wrist. Some of them tinkled, sweet light sounds, like tiny bells. Every time Sherlock moved, to push a curl of hair from his eyes, to rub his pouting lips thoughtfully. Every tiny motion gave forth a bright, light, silvery song.

The line of little Swarovski crystals following the curve of the bone of his radius under his skin, with diversions into little swirls of light and colour, like an echo of a Van Gogh starfield, only in lighter colours, on a warmer canvas.

The silver armbands. Three on Sherlock’s left bicep, two on his right. The crystals dotted up to the points of his shoulders, the trapezoid ligament and acromion joint, then down the sweep of his clavicles.

Sherlock’s ears weren’t pierced, but his ears had little crystals glued to them, a cascade from the helix, the top of his ear, down the auricular tubercle to the lobe, with a few choice circles sparkling just alongside the tragus, down the side of his jaw. A delicately designed screw-type of earing dropped a line of silver and crystals alongside Sherlock’s long, long neck.

Those drew the eye to the bare neck of the fellow. His Adam’s apple was a subtle line, the tendons of his neck, and John wants to resoundingly (though only fraternally) kiss the man who rightly decided that Sherlock’s neck didn’t need adornment, that of itself, that long and beautiful neck, pale and smooth and dotted with those few dark freckles, that tiny mole, was beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

The glittering, glorious, sparkling show did not end there, because dropping his gaze to the southern most extreme of Sherlock’s body, John also saw and ogled the divine strappy open toed high heels which showed off Sherlock’s astonishing (and prettily painted) toes, and the rings Sherlock wore on the second and third of them. Slender and fine.

Down Sherlock’s back – away from his field of view now, but John had seen it, oh yes he had, a line of crystals marked the wings of his scapula; the bumps of Sherlock’s spine. Cervical, thoracic and lumbar spines, and the sacral as it melted into the gluteal fold, the swell of (those fine, luscious, _biteable_ ) gluteal muscles. Crystals sparkling like a stardust alongside his freckles, highlighting an arc more graceful and breathtaking than the Milky Way.

Sherlock wore a thin chain around his waist. As a belt it was useless. As a slender demarcation of where his upper body ended and his lower body began, it was pretty, though unnecessary.

As a curve to emphasise the swell of his hips and arse, it was perfect.

As the sweetly gentle arc that dropped a single, slender line of silver into just the very top of the fold of Sherlock’s naked backside, it was almost as heart-stopping as the way the front of it swooped just so, just so very _so_ , under the slight curve of his mostly flat belly, above the pale skin of his neatly trimmed pubic bush, above the carmine red silk knickers, a man’s G-string, that cupped his cock and balls, hinting lusciously (and tastefully, and how is that possible?) at the lines of both, and the smattering of crystals that peeked above the silk in delicate swirls.

It was all way, way too much, and also, somehow, not nearly enough.  It was extravagant and should have been vulgar, only the delicacy of the crystals, and the extraordinary beauty of the man wearing them, saving the whole display from being utterly risible. Somehow, on Sherlock, this mad treasure trove of sparkles and silver was simply… an emphasis.

As he’d strutted down the catwalk, observing the audience and pouting prettily, hips swaying, Lestrade had very nearly leapt bodily across the line from _mostly straight_ to _please fuck me stupid_. At least two other people in the crowd realised at the same time that they were bisexual, and another two that they were most definitely gay.

Backstage, watching Sherlock send messages to Lestrade about the resolution to the case, John’s heart nearly stopped at the sight of him.

“John?”

John stared at Sherlock and did not speak. He couldn’t for the life of him remember how.

“Lestrade is arresting the jeweller’s boyfriend, John. The idiot had a ludicrous notion of helping to publicise the show with lurid melodrama. As though an outfit like this requires any _more_ lurid melodrama. We can go home now.”

John’s limber tongue flicked out over his lower lip. Flicked out again over his upper lip. Retreated to taste the flavour of the air that had shared a room with Sherlock Holmes looking like _that_. It tasted of sparkles.

“John,” said Sherlock, very softly, “Get my coat. Get yours. Let’s get home. Now.”

John stood straight up, draped Sherlock’s coat around Sherlock’s bedazzled, bejewelled, beguiling body, tugged his own jacket on (inside out) and almost fell out the stage door and stumbled to the street to flag down a taxi.

It’s hard to think straight or move with any grace when all your blood has moved to your groin and is busy maintaining the biggest, hardest, most lustful erection any man has ever had in his entire life.

In the cab, John sat pushed against his door, afraid to sit closer to Sherlock, because he would break, he knew he would. He would break into a million pieces, all of them attached to Sherlock, all of them kissing and licking and sucking on and damned well rutting into Sherlock’s divine, divine, divine personage.

Sherlock drew his coat closer around himself, demurely, despite the fact that he looked not at all demure, the parts of him still visible around the coat all creamy and sparkling and long long lines of lusciousness.

At Baker Street, Sherlock walked up the stairs. Slowly. He swayed. He rolled his hips, and therefore his arse, and his Belstaff revealed only the merest hints of the movement beneath.

On the second flight of stairs going upward, he dropped the coat so that John, ascending the stairs slowly behind him, could watch that roll, that sway, unimpeded.

Sherlock could hear John not breathing for a long time, and then panting, and then trying not to pant, and then giving in to the long, breathy moan that was the closest he’d come to speech in fifteen minutes.

In the living room, Sherlock turned to look at John as John stumbled into the flat, slammed the door shut and then leaned on it, so that he could keep looking without having to, you know, remember how to stand at the same time.

Sherlock Holmes knows that John Watson loves him. He knows that John will love him when he’s old and lined and grey and no longer beautiful. After all, John has loved him while he has been petulant, foul tempered, covered in blotches from allergic reactions to chemicals and swollen like a scarlet and vilely diseased balloon. John has loved Sherlock stinking from sewerage effluvia, and splashed with human remains after an unfortunate and unexpected discovery of a third victim in the house of the murder-suicide they were investigating.

John has loved Sherlock foul tempered, mean-mouthed, throwing up and weeping from exhaustion and the flu.

So the fact that John was speechless with desire on seeing Sherlock decked out in silver and crystals and high heels and little red knickers? Sherlock knows that this reaction does not negate any of the love that comes before, or any of the love that will follow.

It’s just that John has never seen Sherlock dressed up like a birthday present before.

Sherlock thought that it had been a very fine idea, to go undercover on that catwalk, despite the fact he had no need to do so at all, because rendering John Watson so hard, so brain-blank with want, _that_ was a good idea. An excellent idea. One of the best ideas he’d ever had. And Sherlock had many, many good ideas.

Sherlock stood in the centre of 221B, one hip jutting out to emphasise the general lusciousness of his hips, spread his arms wide, ducked his head low and looked up through his mascaraed lashes.

“Happy birthday, John. Would you care to open your gift?”

John’s reply was a guttural, wanton growl. It was a straightening of the shoulder, stepping away from the door and prowling, goddamn prowling, towards his shiny, glittery, peacock of a lover, eyes riveted not to the beautiful body, but to those grey-blue eyes. To the mind behind them.

Because John loved Sherlock, whether peacock pretty or smeared in execrable substances. John knew that Sherlock had dressed up just for him.

John cared to open his present. Very much. Very much. He wanted this gift every day. Not just on his birthday, or Sherlock’s, but every day. This gift of loving someone extraordinary, and being loved by him in return. This gift of joy and excess and wonder.  Every day, oh please, whether dressed in silver and jade and sparkles, or in tattered pyjamas and a sulk.

And even though still incapable of speech, or even of much thought, John’s mind knew that this was Sherlock giving him joy and excess and wonder, just as he’d always longed for. And John’s body knew how to best appreciate this gift. It did. Oh yes, it did. And that was slowly, with care, with exquisite gentle timing. Because some things must not ever, ever be rushed.

So it was with slow deliberation, with that soft wanton growl, John hovered his hands above Sherlock’s skin and traced every line without touching. Heat radiated from his hands to the pale skin, from that pale body to John’s fingertips. John leaned close and breathed, inhaling the heady scent of Sherlock, exhaling the warm scent of John.

Sherlock stood in his heels, hands splayed out, and shivered as John breathed over every inch of him, held his warm hands over every part of him, and radiated heat; desire; love. He quivered as John’s tongue flickered, not touching, but tasting the Sherlock-ness that radiated from Sherlock’s decorated body.

John took off his jacket and his shirt. He took off his shoes and socks. His trousers and his pants. Bare, he stood close, eyes closed, just tall enough that his nose and mouth were close against Sherlock’s throat. He tilted his head up, closer to Sherlock’s pulse point. Breathed in Sherlock. Breathed out John.

“You,” John whispered, as though it had taken him this last twenty minutes of almost-but-not-touching to find words and remember how to string them together, “Are so lovely.”

“John.” An exhale back.

“I. Want. You. Now. Always.”

“Yes.”

The index and middle fingers of John’s left hand caressed the front of Sherlock’s G-string, down the elegant line of his swelling cock. Underneath, to brush against Sherlock’s scrotum. Slowly, John dipped those two fingers under the edge of the knickers, to brush against the hot skin beneath. The knickers became too tight. John just brushed. Up and down. Up and down. The shaft of Sherlock’s cock, the edge of his sac. Their bodies only touched at that point. The tips of John’s two fingers. The line of concealed skin.

John stood on his toes and pressed his lips to the underside of Sherlock’s jaw. Sherlock moaned breathily and tilted his chin down so that their lips met.

The soft kiss began with lips, warm and dry, and then a tiny slide of tongue, and then lips parting and tongues meeting and still the kiss was slow, and delicate, and sweet.

And then it wasn’t sweet. Then it was open mouths pressing together, tongues sliding wetly together, and moans and sighs captured in the heat between them.

John’s fingers stroked their tiny, careful caress, and then hooked into the knickers, wriggled underneath where the triangle of cloth became the string, the line that disappeared into Sherlock’s cleft.

“Tear them,” breathed Sherlock, and licked the moisture at the corner of John’s eye that might have been the faintest bead of perspiration but wasn’t.

John didn’t. Not right away. He ran his fingers up Sherlock’s cleft, the string of the knickers against his knuckles. He ran his fingers against the soft skin, the heat, the pucker of an entrance that, John knew, had been made clean and perfect for this. His hand followed the curve up to the sacral spine, and it was only then that he took the fine string of those panties-for-men and with a sharp twist, broke the cloth.

John dragged his warm hand over Sherlock’s hip, holding onto the string, peeling it away, until Sherlock was revealed, his cock hard and upright, and wet.

John dropped the ruined knickers on the floor and cupped Sherlock’s balls in the palm of his hand. He fondled them softly and leaned close to lick Sherlock’s left nipple; then his right. Then to suckle the left, carefully, and the right.

Sherlock moaned and rolled his hips to push himself into John’s hand. His breath hitched.

“John.”

“Turn, you gorgeous thing. You beautiful, beautiful man.”

Sherlock had intended to make John work harder for this, but he turned as though mesmerised. Held to the edge of the table. Bent from the hips and spread his legs.

Behind him, John kneeled. He kissed first one cheek of Sherlock’s bare behind, then the other. He caressed the rise of that skin, from the top of his arse to the crease of the thigh.

Slowly, because you don’t rush bliss, John rested his palms on each plump cheek. Pressed his thumbs close to the crease. Spread that lovely bottom and breathed into the pink smooth skin.

Sherlock whimpered and leaned over and spread his legs further and jutted out his arse.

And John pressed his mouth to the crease and kissed. Spread those cheeks further and pushed his face closer and flicked his tongue against the tight skin. Curled his tongue into firmness and pushed that firmness into the warm, clean pucker of flesh. And again. And again.

Sherlock keened softly.

John kissed, then licked with the flat of his tongue. Then curled his tongue and pushed into Sherlock’s body, tasting musk, tasting sex, tasting Sherlock. His hands were curved around Sherlock’s bum, holding him open, and Sherlock wriggled and pushed back in tiny movements, wanting more, wanting this.

John licked a long line, from Sherlock’s perineum to the base of his spine. Three times, and then he pressed his cheek to Sherlock’s luscious arse and kissed the soft flesh. Smiled against it.

He raised those two explorers of fingers and slid them into Sherlock’s cleft. Against the perineum, following the trail blazed by John’s tongue. Down again. Pausing at the damp pucker of Sherlock’s entrance and circling the muscle lazily.

John kept his fingers moving there as he slowly stood up and kissed the skin on either side of Sherlock’s crystal-encrusted spine. All the way up to the nape of Sherlock’s neck, fingers and lips moving constantly.

Sherlock could feel the heat of John’s erection on the back of his thighs, against the sensitive flesh of his sensitised arse.

“John…”

“So. Lovely.”

John used his warm, careful hands to turn Sherlock. Sherlock whimpered again as John’s fingers withdrew from their dizzying attentions to his entrance, and once more as John captured his mouth in a long, slow kiss, tongue exploring his mouth deeply. He tasted his own musk on John and keened again, the sound swallowed by John’s mouth on his.

John bent his head again, to kiss Sherlock’s jaw, this throat, his Adam’s apple, the hollow at the base of his throat. One nipple then the other. Sherlock was leaning against the table, legs spread still, barely holding himself upright on those heels, but then one of John’s hands was on the small of his back, holding him up, the other on his balls and cock, fondling, stroking.

“So. Lovely.” John breathed the words over Sherlock’s ribs, his navel, the crystal swirls rising from his pubic mound, and his cock, before John’s mouth closed over the heat and hardness of his prick. Sucked. Licked. Sucked again.

Christ, oh Christ, oh Christ, he was not going to last…

And John’s mouth left him, left his cock wet and slick.

“Onto the table,” John  murmured, and Sherlock felt John’s hands under his thighs. Felt himself lifted. He put his hands back onto the table, and spread his legs still further as John – incredibly strong, incredibly powerfully sexily strong John – lifted him and moved him to seat his arse right on the edge of the table.

“Want you. Always.”

“Always,” agreed Sherlock, not caring that he no longer knew any verbs. Or nouns. No parts of speech but Always. This. Always. This.

John stepped in between Sherlock’s legs, and once more was kissing Sherlock, so thoroughly, so absolutely devotedly, lips and tongue and teeth all part of the wonderful process, but then his hands were lifting Sherlock’s thighs, to wrap them around John’s hips. One warm hand was rolling the nub of Sherlock’s left nipple between dextrous fingers; the other hand was stroking Sherlock’s cock, dipping down to hold and roll his sac, up again along the shaft, thumb stroking over the crown to spread the wetness.

Sherlock faintly heard the crack of the lube – he hardly remembered leaving the bottle on the table (he’d left bottle of lube strategically all over the flat for the evening) and the shock of cold gel on his arse, then the warmth of John rubbing it in, over, around, in, in, oh god, in.

“Ready for me, beautiful?”

Sherlock sigh-moaned and thrust his hips towards John. John kissed his mouth, then helped Sherlock to lie back. Placed his strong hands on Sherlock’s hips and dragged him forward. Arranged Sherlock’s still shod feet, his smooth legs, over his shoulders. He turned his head to kiss one calf, then the other.

John stroked his own cock once. Twice. Held himself, positioned himself, then hands back on Sherlock’s hips, he drew Sherlock _close_ and _against_ , while he pushed _against_ and _in_.

Sherlock thrust his hips and gasped at the sensation of being entered at last.

John groaned at the blissful sensation of entering. He curled his hands around Sherlock’s hips more tightly, and pulled as he pushed, until he was seated fully inside Sherlock’s body.

Then his placed his hands on the top of Sherlock’s thighs and began to thrust.

Sherlock opened his eyes to see John gazing down into his. John’s blue eyes were wide, irises black with desire.

Sherlock pressed his calves to John’s shoulder and spread his legs wider still, and he thrust his hips against the ones that thrust into him, and he forgot all of his words, and he moaned. The bangles at his wrist jingled and tinkled and sang a silvery cacophony of bliss.

John’s hands slid from Sherlock’s thighs, over his hips, over his waist, curved under his ribs to feel the muscles of the back that flexed on the table. Then he ran his hands down again, revelling in the sensation of that movement, all of that lovely movement a Sherlock engaged his whole body in the act of being fucked, and John rolled his hips, let his hands roam, tensed his legs and engaged his whole body in the act of fucking.

His eyes fixed on Sherlock’s closed eyes, his open mouth; on the crystals in his ears and on his body, and the silver on his arms and wrists and fingers and waist and toes. On the whole shining, sparkling, extravagant, gilded, silver-toned bracelet-jingling wonder of him. He pushed his cock deliciously into that delicious body, he slid out and in, feeling the heat of Sherlock against his crown and shaft, against his balls, against his thighs and shoulders and chest and palms. He felt Sherlock flex against him and open himself and dear god, oh god, oh god, the wonder of it, the perfection of it, the heat and excitement and lust and joy of it  and he felt the tension in his lower back, in his feet and his pelvis and his balls and his cock, and one roaming hand wrapped around Sherlock’s cock and stroked, and the other held to Sherlock’s hip and pulled, and _oh oh oh oh oh oh._

Sherlock arched and came and he pushed down onto John’s cock and cried out, and ejaculated again, and John slapped into him, slammed into him,  crying out, coming so hard, and a third time Sherlock pulsed come over his own belly, into the crystals and a fourth as John cried out again and thrust again and then more slowly, and then more slowly still, until he stood panting, pressed in close to Sherlock’s body, still inside him.

John panted, and he grinned, and he leaned down (still inside him, oh god yes) to plant a hot kiss on Sherlock’s sternum.

Sherlock’s chest heaved as he tried to remember how to breathe. Tried to catalogue how his body felt to be so undone by bliss, and how it differed to those other times when John and he forgot the world and all the words and remembered only each other. He slipped his calves off John’s shoulders and clamped them around John’s waist instead, briefly.

John tilted his hips back, his spent prick sliding out of Sherlock’s pliant body. He leaned over again to kiss Sherlock again, hold Sherlock’s jaw in his steady hands.

“Happy anniversary,” murmured Sherlock, pleased with himself that he remembered the words, one of them with five whole syllables.

John laughed, warm breath huffed out over Sherlock’s lips.

His first birthday as Sherlock’s lover.

The third year since they’d met.

Third anniversary was crystal. They’d learned that on a case last month.

“Sherlock Holmes, you are a romantic,” accused John, so delighted.

“Sh,” Sherlock murmured back, “Don’t tell.”

“Your secret is safe with me,” John said, kissing him again, “All your secrets.”

“Mmmm.” Sherlock wound his long arms, his long legs, around John and hugged him close.

John lipped at the rings on Sherlock’s fingers. Kissed his arms, and his chest, and his shoulders and neck.

“Happy birthday to me,” he whispered against goosebumped skin.

“I like your birthday,” said Sherlock, laughing low. “Let’s go to bed and celebrate it again.” He wrapped his legs tight around John’s waist and John scooped his hands behind Sherlock’s back and lifted him up. Sherlock’s arms went around his neck  (and the bangles jingled, and the rings and armbands glinted in the light) and they kissed like that, the tall slender man held easily in the arms and against the body of that shorter, stockier man of patience and strength.

And they went back to bed, and nuzzled and kissed until they were ready to celebrate again.

It took them four days to get all the crystals out of the bed.

They never did find the second earring. Mostly because they never, ever noticed they’d lost it.

Most of the jewellery they returned to the artisan. One of them they bought and kept.

The sleeping dragon.

And John bought Sherlock a whole range of pretty, silky lingerie, and spent many long hours dressing him up in them, and taking them off again.

Every day was a birthday; an anniversary: a celebration.

Always.

This.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Atlinmerrick made a pretty picture for this!! [Seeeeeeeeeeee!!](http://atlinmerrick.tumblr.com/post/75025783739/rec-birthday-boy-by-221b-hound-johns)
> 
> And look at this pretty fanart!!  
>  by archiaart for significanceofmoths on Tumblr!


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